Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister on her new position. I wish her every success in it.

A society is rated on how it treats its elderly people.

How we treat our elderly people in this country beggars belief. We have people on waiting lists continuously. People are waiting two and a half years to see an eye specialist in Cork city. In my constituency of Cork North-Central, we have the Blackpool SouthDoc debacle that has been going on for the last two and a half years where we have a doctor in place who is on call. The building is meant to be open, but is continuously closed. An awful lot of the elderly people in my constituency, and around this country, cannot afford to take taxis and do not have family or friends to bring them to the other side of the city to be seen in SouthDoc out of hours.

We have a situation in Mallow where we have no dentist who will take a medical card for OAPs. That is wrong. There is something seriously wrong in the dental system when an OAP cannot get on a dental list or be seen anywhere, that he or she has to travel all the way to Cork city, up to Limerick or possibly to Kerry.

The cross-Border system has worked very well for us but last year, the Minister's predecessor cut the budget for eye cataract surgeries by 50%. Deputy Collins, other Deputies from Independent Ireland and I have worked continuously with cross-Border hospitals in Northern Ireland, bringing more than 2,500 people to Northern Ireland. We are glad to have that facility in Northern Ireland, but they should be able to have the operation in the Cork and Kerry region. To add more insult to injury, the Department, the Minister's predecessor and the previous Government cut the budget by 50%. An awful lot of people who were dependent on that said it was Belfast or blind for them. People cannot afford to go to Belfast now and as a result are going blind waiting four, five or six years for cataract operations. People are waiting for appointments for knee and hip surgery. It is unbelievable. This is how we are judged as a society; how we treat our elderly people. History will judge the Minister, her Department, her predecessors and this Government in a very poor light.

I also want to bring to the Minister's attention how we are treating our elderly when it comes to downsizing for housing. We are talking a lot about elderly people downsizing and the fuel poverty that is there. What are we doing about retirement villages? What are we doing about keeping people in their communities, who could, with a small bit of assisted living, still live in their communities but do not have the opportunity to downsize because there are no funds available for assisted living in the community? People are ending up in retirement homes for no reason. People are ending up having to get a huge amount of care from care services. People in large houses are having to depend on families. We are always talking about changing the housing situation and allowing people to downsize but we are not investing in small catered communities for the elderly in their own community.

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